Brooms made of plastic bottles boom
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 19 2018: A 58 year old innovator has found a way of re-using used plastic water bottles for income generation which in turn also helps in checking environmental pollution to some extent.

Usham Krishna Singh of Chingkhu Awang Leikai, Imphal East has succeeded in generating a handsome income by manufacturing brooms out of used and disposed plastic water bottles.

At the same time, he has succeeded in making a significant contribution towards keeping the environment clean by reusing the disposed plastic water bottles quite productively.

Usham Krishna is a peasant and his home is located close to the local garbage dumping site where he saw a large number of plastic bottles dumped every day.

It was this regular sight which prompted him to think of a way in which the disposed plastic bottles can be re-used productively.

Lectures given by Government officials at his village as a part of Total Sanitation Campaign also helped him in his search for an innovative way of re-using the disposed plastic bottles productively, Krishna confided.

It was Krishna's eldest son Ashok who came up with the idea of making brooms out of disposed plastic water bottles.

Brooms made of plastic bottles boom

Notably, Ashok is a National-level cyclist.

He had won one gold and two silver medals in U-19 National cycling championships.

He also competed in the Jharkhand National Games.

At present, Ashok is running electronics repairing centre where mobile phones, laptops etc are repaired.

After working for three months, Krishna and his family succeeded in making brooms out of plastic water bottles which look similar to the conventional brooms made of bamboo.

Now they are selling the plastic brooms at Rs 150 to Rs 200 per piece and their innovative product is growing quite popular.

In the past, floods brought muddy water, twigs, hyacinths etc along rivers and drains.

But these days, floods bring mounds and mounds of plastic bottles, bags and other forms of containers thereby posing serious threats to environment and ecology.

Krishna said.

"It was in search of a way of checking environmental pollution by plastic waste materials that I came across the idea of making brooms out of plastic bottles.

Income generation was not the primary motive", he said.

He confided that some people mocked him when he started collecting disposed water plastic bottles.

"The mockery did not daunt me and now I carry a jute bag every time I go for any work so that I can collect plastic bottles disposed on road sides.

Some people even bring empty plastic bottles to our home", he said.

Using a file or horse-knife, the plastic bottles are sliced to very thin pieces in the form of threads.

The plastic threads are made rigid by applying hot air-gun used by Ashok in repairing mobile phones but the staffs are made of bamboo, Krishna explained.

For manufacturing one broom, 30 bottles of one litre capacity are required, and only two or three brooms were manufactured in a day during the initial period.

Krishna said that he can now make more brooms in a day after using an electric motor.

He said that he is planning to establish a Self Help Group by mobilising around 10 people of his village after the harvesting season is over.

Notably, the Directorate of Environment has already reported that five percent of the total solid waste generated by Imphal city in a day are plastics.

Meanwhile, Manipur Biodiversity Board Member Secretary Dr Lokho Punii said that the idea of manufacturing brooms out of plastic bottles deserves appreciation and support from all quarters.